High on God

I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m addicted to National Public Radio (NPR).  Now, I’ve had love affairs with NPR before.  Years ago, I endured 45 minute commutes to work, and NPR was my savior.  Those stories made the time go by. There were even moments when I sat in the car in the driveway just trying to finish a story.   Then I got a job 6 minutes from home, and I was just listening to those Storycorp shorts.  Still inspiring, but only a couple of minutes.  Nowadays, I don’t commute, but I need something to distract me while I’m on the treadmill.  NPR does this, while connecting me to the USA and I feel like I am working out my mind while working out my body. It works for me.

This afternoon I heard this incredible story.  Michel Martin, a journalist and host of Tell Me More, interviewed Antoinette Tuff in a story called, “How One Woman’s FaithStopped a School Shooting.”  Martin’s show focuses heavily on topics of race, religion, and spirituality, but she’s a journalist, a good one.  I listen to her show often but have never detected a bias for or against Christianity.  She just presents the facts and pushes people to answer difficult questions, the questions that most listeners (like me) are thinking. 

Back to the incredible story:  Antoinette Tuff is just a regular woman of Faith, who prevented a mass shooting at an elementary school last year by calming down the mentally ill gunman. Her story is very “purpose driven life-ish” and she even wrote a book, “Prepared for a Purpose.”  It sounds a little like that 2005 Atlanta hostage story, where Ashley Smith read parts Rick Warren’s book to her captor.   But there’s something more to Antoinette’s story.  She didn’t read Rick Warren, Billy Graham or even the Bible out loud to this crazy gunman.  Instead, GOD SPOKE DIRECTLY THROUGH HER.

This is what God had been preparing her for, and he used her incredibly that day.  Here’s what Antoinette has to say about it:  “I went back to listen to the 911 tape to see exactly what I was saying and how calm I was. And to be honest with you. I didn’t even recognize my own voice.  And so I knew at that moment that it was God that guided me through that day.”

How many of you have had moment like that?  I’ve had moments like that – incredible moments where I didn’t save any lives that I know of, but I know, in my heart that God spoke to someone through me.  Sometimes it was just a word or two; sometimes it was a whole conversation.  I supposed it’s what pastors’ feel after an especially amazing sermon.  I’m not a pastor, and I haven’t save any lives, but I am a Christian, and those moments are incredible TO ME. 

It’s a high, maybe like a runners’ high (which I’ve only recently experienced), less dangerous than a drug high (which I’ve only experienced in the hospital)

that I want to hold on to, and chase every day for the rest of my life.

 Isn’t that the purpose driven life?